If you add some non-fat dry milk to your recipe, it will soften the bite and make it less crunchy. This has been my experience and may be what you're looking for.

Thanks for the tip, Dan. I might give that a try sometime.

However...

Man, I'm getting good at this. Sorry, no pics of tonight's pizza. It was too good to stop eating for long enough to take any pictures. I really like the latest dough formula, from Reply #297, which I made on August 28. Even after four days, the dough was nowhere near overfermented, so I guess it wouldn't hurt to increase the yeast percentage a little. 5% shortening seems about right. There was no blistering with either crust made from this dough, probably because I baked the pizzas immediately after rolling the dough, instead of leaving the skins in the fridge for at least a few hours. I prefer no blisters.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

Even though my Shakey's clone dough currently calls for 4.36% shortening (based on extensive analysis of the Shakey's threads around here, particularly posts from elsegundo, in addition to having eaten at Shakey's five times), I'm inclined to say I now think Shakey's dough should contain at least 6% shortening. To me, Tommy's crust and Shakey's crust are very similar. I'd say the only two noticeable differences are: 1) Shakey's is a little stiffer than Tommy's (which is probably a big reason why Shakey's crust is less blistery), and 2) Shakey's dough/crust has a little more fat than Tommy's.

I think I said the same thing a couple pages back. If so, it now seems pretty well confirmed, because the revelations I've made with Tommy's the last couple months are a direct result of trying to make what I expected to be a Tommy's/Shakey's hybrid crust, which is considerably different than everything I did prior to the last couple months.

So if Tommy's dough really does contain 5% shortening, then it seems Shakey's must contain just a little more than 5%.

I should post some pics of pizzas from experimental Shakey's style pizzas I made last fall. (I'm gonna look through them right now.)

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

Ryan, Pizza is looking great! Back in the day shortening wasn't what it is today. You might consider trying lard or a more saturated fat shortening. I use "Manteca" brand lard at about 2% and I find it gives my crusts a better "snap", more like a corn chip. I don't know if you're using Crisco or not, but for me the crunch I get from Crisco is much softer in bite. I think they have taken out all the "bad" stuff in Crisco and it just isn't the same anymore. They are trying to market it as being "healthier" for you, but I have read baking forums and people complain about it all the time. Same thing goes for Margarine. Just something to consider in your pursuit, keep up the good work, I enjoy reading your progress.

Ryan, I agree with Dan -- your pizzas are looking really, really good. Thanks for sharing your research with us. Dan and I both appreciate a thin, laminated crust.

These crusts you make do look a lot like a Round Table pizza crust even though, as you said, the pizzas taste a lot different. Do you think it's just the cheese and sauce that make them different, or is it also the crust itself?

I need to go read all the way through your Malty Laminated Beer thread again soon, Dan, because I'll probably understand it in a totally different way now than I did whenever I last looked through it. I've spent much of tonight reading a bunch of fazzari's stuff from about 2008-09. Man, I just love the concept of laminated crusts, and I love seeing the evolution of the body of laminated crust knowledge here on the boards. I didn't realize it as it was happening, but I feel like I've played a pretty big role in discovering and revealing some of the secrets and tricks of making this awesome style of pizza. And I love how it all started for me, because I basically responded to briterian's original post in this thread by saying (paraphrasing), "Man, I don't know crap about how to make Tommy's pizza, but I'll give it a try." It's a shame there's not more interest in this style.

Tim, it's ALL about the crust. The lamination; sometimes the extra fermentation; blisters vs. no blisters. So many other things. Mainly the lamination, though. That's what really makes it special. And there are so many different ways to do it, too; so many little changes you can do to make something that's almost the same but totally different, yet equally good. I had a lot of revelations last November as I focused on Shakey's style for a couple weeks, which I shared in a series of very long, detailed emails with Chicago Bob. I'm curious to go back and read those emails.

I've been wanting to try lard for a long time, but I just haven't done it yet. I think Bob wanted me to try lard when I was doing all that stuff last November. (I think there's even some lard in the fridge.) But right now I'm taking a break from pizza (because my body needs me to put exclusively real food in it for a while). It'll probably be at least a few weeks before I make another pizza.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

These crusts you make do look a lot like a Round Table pizza crust even though, as you said, the pizzas taste a lot different. Do you think it's just the cheese and sauce that make them different, or is it also the crust itself?

Wait a minute. Did I compare my pizzas to Round Table? I don't remember saying anything about Round Table, except yesterday in a thread in the Dough Doctor boards. But all I really had to say about Round Table was that I think I used to eat at Round Table a lot when I lived in Vegas, and that I don't remember much about their pizza.

So are you saying you think some of my pizzas look like Round Table? If so, I assume you're talking specifically about the pie-cut pics above. (By the way, I love the first bubble pic.)

Since I think I originally misinterpreted what you said in the quoted text above, what I said in my previous post may have been a little out of context. I was explaining why I think Tommy's style (or Shakey's style) pizzas are different than most other styles of pizza. From what little I know and remember about Round Table, I'd say these pizzas (both my Tommy's style and Shakey's style) are close siblings of Round Table. I'd say maybe Tommy's dough is about the same as Round Table, but slightly stiffer, and Shakey's dough is about the same as Tommy's, but slightly stiffer.

(I'm really tired right now. So if I haven't made any sense here, now you know why.)

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

Ryan, I could have sworn that you posted (a long time ago) that you had a Round Table pizza and that it was good, but different than the pizza you were trying to create. I can't find the post now, and I think it must have been by another thin crust pizza maker. Anyway, I appreciate your analysis and agree that your Tommy's crust does resemble a Round Table -- I'm looking forward trying it!

Does this one resemble Round Table to you, at least with the bubbles around the edges? I spent a while last night looking through pictures of Round Table pizzas via a Google image search, but most of the pics that came up seemed to be corporate/menu/marketing pics, which I think tend to be pretty useless and misleading. A great example of a misleading marketing pic is the pizza on the front of the Giordano's web site (http://giordanos.com/), which looks nothing like actual Giordano's pizzas. With certain brands of pizza (like Giordano's and Malnati's), that's not a big deal because they have such a cult-like following, which means there are a million customer pics all over the internet, of actual Giordano's and actual Malnati's pizzas. But unlike Giordano's and Malnati's, Round Table doesn't seem to have even a trace of cultish, die-hard, picture-taking fans out there.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

That pizza looks AWESOME and is certainly in the same ball park. I should note that DNA Dan would be a much better judge of authentic Round Table crusts as I've never actually had pizza from Round Table. I grew up eating pizza from a local pizzeria (in Northwest Ohio) that was owned my a man who used to manage a Round Table restaurant in California. So, you could say, I've eaten lots and lots of Round Table clones, but how close they are to genuine Round Table pizzas, I don't know. The pizzas I grew up eating look almost exactly like these RT clones from DNA Dan pictured below.

As someone who has had many (but not nearly enough ) Round Table pizzas in my day, I can say that both Ryan's and Tim's pictures are basically what a Round Table pizza looks like. Yes, they typically do have some bubbling (air pockets) in the crust. Tim's picture of DNA Dan's pizza is spot-on in terms of how a Round Table pizza actually looks.

Ryan, I think you are correct when you state that Round Table is some relative of Shakey's (and Tommy's, though I have never had a Tommy's pizza, but your descriptions do help). Round Table started in California (Menlo Park/San Fran area) about 5 years after Shakey's (Sacramento) got started. They are/were both family-oriented pizza chains and are both a type of what I refer to as Midwestern style (despite originating on the West Coast): thin, crunchy crust, with the use of some amount of fat in the dough (shortening, butter, etc.). Shakey's traditionally has been made from what I would say is a less hydrated dough than Round Table, i.e. more of a crisp/cracker dough than RT. However, I did manage to eat at a Shakey's last November in Anaheim, and it seems their dough was a little softer and undercooked from what I remember. I attribute at least some of this consistency to the fact they now use conveyor ovens instead of the old traditional deck ovens. For example, the Shakey's I ate at in March 2012 in Oroville still uses the deck ovens, and it had more of the taste and texture of what I remember from Shakey's in my youth.

While reading the first page of this thread last night, I caught something I think is very interesting, which I had never considered before (because I've never had a reason to revisit my early Tommy's attempts in search of any kind of insight). What I realized last night is that I had the dough formula almost right at the very beginning of my quest to clone Tommy's, but also that I never had a clue (until last night).

Other than the change in sugar, the 12/6/2010 formula (second batch EVER) and the 8/30/2013 formula (most recent and best-yet) are nearly identical. Pretty weird, huh.

To be fair, there were a couple differences that may not be immediately evident in the expression of my formulas. The first difference is that my original dough used All Trumps flour, rather than Pillsbury AP flour. The second difference is that my original dough used canola oil, rather than shortening. I doubt that the oil vs. shortening makes much of a difference, but I concede that the flour does make a big difference.

Still, those are eerily similar dough formulations, especially considering how many formula changes I've made during the three years since I first attempted to clone Tommy's, as well as how drastic some of the changes have been.

What I think is much cooler, though, is that my Tommy's clones of today just can't be compared to the pizzas I made out of a nearly identical dough formula almost three years ago. Which I think pretty well demonstrates that success is dictated a lot less by the constitution of your dough than by how you treat your dough.

Something I think is interesting is that laminating the dough is something I came up with on my own, even though there were already at least a few threads about laminated dough when I started doing this. (When I started laminating, I had never seen the other threads.) It kinda puzzles me that I thought to laminate the dough, especially so early in my trials and errors, because lamination was just not a part of my body of pizzamaking knowledge at the time. At the time, the only style of pizza I really made was pseudo-NY style.

Anyway, here's a look at what happens when you don't know what you're doing, followed by a look at what happens when you do know what you're doing, using an almost identical dough formula but with nearly three years to figure out what to do with the dough. The pictures in this post are of the pizza I made on December 7, 2010. It wasn't my first Tommy's attempt, but it was one of the first few. (It was the first time I took pictures, and it was probably the first pizza that was remotely worthy of being photographed.)

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

Well Tommy, welcome to the lamination club! This style has been around since the 50's. Pioneered by Shakeys, copied by Round Table, Straw Hat and a few other places. Shakey's was a partnership between Sherwood "Shakey" Johnson and Ed Plumber. Ed later went off to start "Me N Eds" which Lydia has been trying to clone. All these recipes are essentially the same, an underdeveloped dough which is laminated and not overworked. Some are more or less crunchy, some more or less dry, etc. but it's the air pockets and bubbling texture of the crust that makes it such a pleasure to eat on the senses.

Regarding the flour, I feel you need a sheeter to make All Trumps work well for you. That flour just needs more force to be worked. In the home situation (such as what you're doing) I think AP flour is better and easier to use if doing this by hand. (As your results have shown.)

For sauce, throughout most of this thread, I used Dei Fratelli crushed tomatoes with a pretty simple recipe, which I believe included only oregano, basil, and salt. (The recipe is listed somewhere in this thread.) Lately, though, I've used slightly diluted Full-Red pizza sauce with a very similar recipe, as well as a hint of crushed red pepper (which probably isn't in Tommy's sauce, but maybe should be). I think I even used some 7/11 recently, too, which was probably seasoned for the Giordano's stuffed clones I've been working on. You can get away with using just about anything for sauce on a Tommy's style pizza. It's not like their sauce is anything special. It's probably best to keep it pretty thick, though.

For the pizzas I've made lately, I've been using Grande whole milk mozzarella, since I bought a case of it this summer, for parties. Throughout this thread, though, I used mostly GFS whole milk mozzarella. I used GFS provolone for at least a short period, as provolone is pretty much standard on pizza in Columbus, including Tommy's.

The pepperoni I've used lately is Ezzo GiAntonio, which is the same pepperoni Tommy's uses. I had to buy a whole case to get it, but I'm glad I did, even if half of it never gets used, because it cost me half the price (per pound) of the best pepperoni I can get at a retail level, and it's way better (and much easier to use) than any pepperoni I can get at retail. Throughout this thread I used mostly Bridgford pepperoni stick, but I also occasionally used what I believe was Pavone pepperoni (foodservice quality pepperoni, but sold in small quantities at a local Italian specialty shop). I may have used Ezzo Supreme pepperoni on some pizzas. But Ezzo GiAntonio is obviously the pepperoni I want for this pizza, since that's what Tommy's uses. Besides, it's a really good pepperoni.

Other toppings: I know I made one with chicken, bacon, and jalapenos a while back. That's probably the only one that wasn't either cheese or pepperoni.

Actually, for the pizzas I've made lately, I've done a lot of things differently than I did for what I considered my best-yet Tommy's clones prior to this summer. I've been wanting to share a list of all the things I do different now, but I just haven't made that list yet. Y'know, like including sugar and fat in the dough, contrary to what I KNEW was the right thing to do prior to a couple months ago. And baking directly on stone, instead of using the perforated pans. My recent pizzas are much thinner, too. And many other notable changes.

And it's not necessarily that I was doing all this stuff wrong. A lot of it is actually that my Tommy's pizzas have moved down the street about a mile and a half, from the Upper Arlington unit to the OSU unit. That is, my latest pizzas are more representative of what you'd get at the OSU store, whereas my earlier pizzas were more representative of what you'd get at the Upper Arlington store. (They're both on Lane Avenue.)

Disclaimer: Don't necessarily believe anything I say here. My brain ain't quite right anymore (unless it is). If I come off as rude or argumentative, that's probably not my intention. Rather, that's just me being honest, to myself and everyone else; partly because I don't have enough time left to BS either you or myself. If you are offended by anything I say, it's probably because you think lying to people (to be "polite") is a good idea. I don't.

I decided to give your recipe (or at least my variation of it) a try this weekend. I'll give my step by step work flow that I put together based on my understanding of your technique. Any corrections or suggestions for improvement are welcomed.

I modified it slightly to use non-diastatic malt powder (pic 1) instead of sugar and I changed this amount from 1% to 2% because I wanted to give myself a chance to perhaps taste it and I wanted to be sure there was plenty of food for the microbes to do their thing. I also added a bit of Dry Non-Fat Milk (pic 2) because you said this crust was maybe a little too crunchy, and I added a little garlic romano seasoning because I find it gives dough that "pizza parlor" smell and taste. With these changes made I came up with this formula:

Oh and I used KABF instead of AP flour because it was all I had in the cupboard besides All Trumps and Caputo.

I first measured all the flour, salt, DNFM, malt powder, and garlic romano seasoning and added them to the mixing bowl (pic 3). I used a whisk to combine these ingredients and then removed about 8 oz of this powder mixture from the bowl using a measuring cup. (I like to withhold some of the flour upon initial mix to prevent it from flying everywhere when I turn on the mixer. ) Next I added my IDY to 356g of warm water and, after stirring, poured all of the water into the mixing bowl.

Upon adding the water, I could tell right away that my dough was too dry. I know this is a low hydration dough, but this dough was too scrappy and a lot of the flour wasn't combining. Living at a high altitude and in a very dry climate, I am used to my flour being too dry, and I often have to add a few "palm-fulls" of water to dough recipes. So I added 1 table spoon of water and let this mix in, then I turned off the mixer for a 10 minute rest. (pic 4) Next I added the shortening along with the withheld flour mixture and seeing it was still too dry, added another tablespoon of water. I felt the dough looked about right at this point (pic 5) and removed it from the bowl. Total mix time was about 9 minutes (+ the 10 minute rest) at speed 2 on my KA mixer.

Next I weighed the dough and found it weighed 43.65 oz. (pic 6) -- pretty close to my target of 45 oz. I then divided the bulk dough into 4 dough balls, each weighing about 10.9 oz. (pic 7) Once divided, I took each dough ball individually and rolled them out to about 13 or 14 inches in diameter. (pic eight) I was glad to discover that the dough was not very sticky and I wouldn't have needed any additional bench flour.

After rolling out all 4 dough balls to about 13 or 14 inches, I then folded them into fourths by folding them in half and then in half again. (pic 1) Next I wrapped each of the 4 dough balls individually with Saran wrap (pic 2) and put them into the refrigerator overnight.

12 hours later I removed them from the refrigerator. They raised a lot! (pic 3) I removed all of the plastic wrap (pic 4) and combined the 4 dough balls into 2 dough balls by pressing them together with my hands. (pic 5) I then re-wrapped the merged dough balls with plastic wrap and let them sit at room temperature for about 2 hours. (pic 6)

I decided I wanted to try for blisters on the bottom of the crust, and it's my understanding that the dough needs to me rolled out, docked, and refrigerated again to achieve this, so that is what I did. After rolling out the merged, room temperature dough balls, I used a 16-inch pizza screen as a template (pic 7) and trimmed the dough edges, (pic eight) setting the scraps aside for later use.

The next step was to heavily dock the dough (one side only) (pic 1) and then I moved the dough (using my rolling pin to wrap the dough) to a 15-inch cardboard circle (pic 2) so that I could wrap it with plastic wrap (pic 3) and put it into the refrigerator for about 30 minutes.

After the 30 minutes it was time to make pizza! I again used my rolling pin to help transfer the dough from the cardboard and onto my prepared pizza peel. ( I should mention that I weighed the dough at this point and found that it weighed 17.65 oz. A little heavier than the 16 oz. I was shooting for, but I decided to go with it because I didn't want the crust to develop holes in it from being too thin and I wanted to be sure it would hold all of the sauce and toppings I was going to use. )